Crimes of Mobility: Criminal Law and the Regulation of Immigration (Routledge Studies in Criminal Justice, Borders and Citizenship)

Crimes of Mobility: Criminal Law and the Regulation of Immigration (Routledge Studies in Criminal Justice, Borders and Citizenship)

Language: English

Pages: 248

ISBN: 041583922X

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub

Winner of the 2014 British Society of Criminology Book Prize

This book examines the role of criminal law in the enforcement of immigration controls over the last two decades in Britain. The criminalization of immigration status has historically served functions of exclusion and control against those who defy the state’s powers over its territory and population. In the last two decades, the powers to exclude and punish have been enhanced by the expansion of the catalogue of immigration offences and their more systematic enforcement.

This book is the first in-depth analysis on criminal offences in Britain, and presents original empirical material about the use of criminal powers against suspected immigration wrongdoers. Based on interviews with practitioners and staff at the UK Border Agency and data from court cases involving immigration defendants, it examines prosecution decision making and the proceedings before the criminal justice system. Crimes of Mobility critically analyses the criminalization of immigration status and, more generally, the functions of the criminal law in immigration enforcement, from a legal and normative perspective.

It will be of interest to academics and research students working on criminology, criminal law, criminal justice, socio-legal studies, migration and refugee studies, and human rights, as well as criminal law and immigration practitioners.

has been historically low. Medina (1997) explains low enforcement rates as a function of the moral tension arising from the employment prohibition, given that private labour relations are at the core of the US economic system and constitutionally protected from state intervention (Medina 1997; see also Welch 2003: 329). While in 2008, the UKBA imposed 1,164 civil penalties against employers, worth £11.2 million, in 2009, the number almost doubled: 2,210 fines were levied amounting to a total of

offenders when they sign on at the police station or during police operations, such as street raids or the investigation of other crimes (Jordan and Düvell 2002: 177). The police have broad powers of stop and search. A police officer may stop someone if he or she has grounds to suspect that the person is carrying drugs, guns or other items to commit a crime or to cause criminal damage. A vehicle can be stopped at any time and the driver asked to show his or her driving licence to the police

Legomsky (2007) about the United States are valid for Britain as well. He pointed to the asymmetric nature of the convergence of immigration and criminal law, in which only some aspects of the latter are imported (those related to criminal enforcement), but not others (procedural rights). Most importantly, criminal punishment does not serve as a substitute for expulsion (Stumpf 2009: 1691). In many of these cases, after serving their sentence, people convicted for immigration offences may be

critically contemporary appeals to criminal law and the actual practices of punishment against immigrants. So besides looking at document-based data (legislation, policy papers, official statistics, parliamentary debates, case law, etc.), I analysed court cases (both hearings and court files) on immigration-related offences and conducted semi-structured interviews with government and nongovernment actors. Court data and interviews are important sources of information beyond the written texts of